William Walton Sharman (May 25, 1926 – October 25, 2013), also known as "Battling Bill", was an American professional basketball player and coach. Sharman is a two-time Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee, having been inducted in 1976 as a player, and in 2004 as a coach. Only John Wooden, Lenny Wilkens, Tommy Heinsohn and Bill Russell share this double honor.
Sharman is mostly known for his time with the Boston Celtics in the 1950s as a player in the National Basketball Association (NBA), partnering with fellow Hall of Fame guard Bob Cousy in what was then considered the greatest backcourt duo of all time. As a coach, Sharman won titles in the American Basketball League (ABL), American Basketball Association (ABA), and NBA, and is credited with introducing the now-ubiquitous morning shootaround. He was named Coach of the Year in both the ABA and NBA.
Sharman was the first North American sports figure to win a championship as a player, coach, and executive. He was a 15-time NBA champion (having won four titles as a player with the Celtics, one as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, and ten during his time as a Lakers' general manager, president, and special consultant); and a 17-time champion in professional basketball overall counting his ABL and ABA titles. Sharman coached the 1971–72 Los Angeles Lakers to an NBA record 33-game win streak; a then-record regular season 69–13 win–loss mark; and the first Lakers championship in Los Angeles.
Sharman was an All-American basketball player at the University of Southern California (USC). He played under Naismith Hall of Fame head coach Sam Barry. Sharman was selected twice as the Most Valuable Player in the Pacific Coast Conference. Two of his teammates at USC were future Hall of Fame coaches Alex Hannum and Tex Winter.
Sharman was born on May 25, 1926, in Abilene, Texas. The family moved to California when he was a child, and he grew up in Lomita, California. He originally attended Narbonne High School where he was on a championship basketball team in ninth grade. As a sophomore, he began attending Porterville High School (PHS), a high school in the Central California city of Porterville, California, after his father obtained a newspaper dealership there. Narbonne's season had ended, and he joined PHS's basketball team and won another championship in the same year. This enabled Sharman to win five high school basketball championships in four years.
He was a 15-letter athlete at PHS, excelling in basketball and baseball, competing in track, and winning the state amateur tennis title. He graduated in 1944, and was named California's Outstanding Athlete. He gave credit to PHS for contributing to his later success in life. Acclaimed sportscaster Keith Jackson said that "'Bill Sharman may have been the best all-around athlete to ever come out of the state of California'".
Sharman served during World War II from 1944 to 1946 in the US Navy.
Sharman was a graduate of the University of Southern California. He started on both the baseball and basketball teams. USC records describe him as playing on the school's baseball team for two years, in 1949 and 1950, and not as a member of the 1948 USC Trojans baseball team.
Sharman played basketball for four years at USC (1946–1950) in the Pacific Coast Conference. He averaged 15.9 points per game as a junior (1948–1949), and 18.6 as a senior (1949–1950). His 13.7 points per game average over his USC career was a then school record. As a senior, he was selected team captain and the team's most valuable player. Sharman, who was known as "Battling Bill", received a standing ovation from USC's fans for the last 1½ minutes of his final college game, played against John Wooden and the UCLA Bruins. Sharman was twice selected All-Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) and twice was named the PCC's Most Valuable Player.
Following his senior year, it is reported that Sharman was a consensus first-team 1950 NCAA Men's Basketball All-American, along with his future Boston Celtic teammate Bob Cousy. It was contemporaneously reported in 1950 that the International News Service and Colliers Magazine named Sharman a first-team All-American, the Associated Press and United Press named him a second-team All-American, and Look magazine named him a third-team All-American. The Sporting News also named him a first-team All-American.
Sharman played forward for USC under Hall of Fame head coach Sam Barry. In addition to Sharman, Barry coached two other future Hall of Fame coaches at USC, Tex Winter and Alex Hannum. Sharman was Hannum's teammate from 1946 to 1948 at USC. They both played with Winter during the 1946–47 USC season.
In 1950, the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball organization offered Sharman a contract with a $12,000 signing bonus, at a time when professional baseball was more prestigious than professional basketball. However, Sharman knew he had been taken by the Washington Capitols in the NBA draft, so he got the Dodgers to agree that he not be prevented from playing professional basketball.
From 1950 to 1955, Sharman played professional baseball in the Brooklyn Dodgers minor league system. He played for the Pueblo Dodgers, Elmira Pioneers, Fort Worth Cats, St. Paul Saints, and the Mobile Bears. He had a lifetime .281 batting average in 638 games. He was called up to the Dodgers late in the 1951 season but did not appear in a game. He was part of a September 27 game in which the entire Brooklyn bench was cleared from the dugout for arguing with the home plate umpire over a ruling at the plate. This has led to the legend that Sharman holds the distinction of being the only player in baseball history to have ever been ejected from a major league game without ever appearing in one. However, although Sharman was among the Dodger bench players that had to go to the clubhouse, none of them were actually barred from playing in the game. In fact, in the top of the ninth, one of the other dismissed players, Wayne Terwilliger, was used as a pinch-hitter in the game.
Sharman continued to play baseball until breaking his basketball shooting hand while sliding into home plate, after which he decided to focus solely on basketball.
Professional basketball career
During the same time period he was playing professional baseball, Sharman also played professional basketball for two different teams.
Sharman was drafted by the Washington Capitols in the second round of the 1950 NBA draft. His future Celtics teammate Bob Cousy was taken in the first round of the same draft. The team offered Sharman $5,000, the most ever paid to a rookie. After refusing the initial offer, and telling the Capitols he wanted to play baseball, the team increased the offer to $8,000 and Sharman joined the Capitols. The team failed financially 35 games into the 1950–51 season. Before the team folded, Sharman played in 31 games, averaging 12.2 points and 3.5 rebounds per game with an .889 free thrown percentage.
Earl Lloyd, the African American player who broke the NBA's color barrier was a Capitols' teammate. Lloyd did not have a car, and Sharman would drive over to Lloyd's home in segregated Washington, D.C. to pick Lloyd up, so Lloyd would not have to take long bus rides. Lloyd said of Sharman, "'Bill was a decent guy when it wasn't fashionable...."